At some point in your life, you will have to deal with loss. Your loss could be a personal one, such as the death of a spouse or the end of a relationship. Or, your loss could be on a much grander scale, like the grief that our country, and the entire international community, felt for the victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The finality of events such as the death of a loved one, the end of a loving partnership or the violence and hatred displayed on that fateful day can leave us stunned and in despair. How do you move on from grief? Read on for some ways to help put the past behind you and come to terms with your loss, and take our quiz to find out if you’re depressed…

The 5 Stages of Grief

Dr. Elisabeth Kübler, a Swiss psychiatrist, first described the Five Stages of Grief in 1969 to explain the emotions that a person dealing with grief may experience. Many people have interpreted this incorrectly, thinking that everyone experiences all five of these stages, in order. But nowhere does it say you’ll experience them all, or go from one stage to the next. Some people start with “depression” and then jump into “anger” and may never get to “acceptance.” More likely than not, if you’re experiencing a very tragic loss, you will face one or all of these emotions head-on:

2. Anger – Accusing others, such as a supreme being or friends, for what has occurred. “How dare you let this happen!”

3. Bargaining – Asking the universe or a supreme being to “cut a deal” with you. “Just let me live to see my daughter get married.”

4. Depression – Experiencing listlessness or exhaustion combined with feelings of helplessness, guilt and lack of interest in life. “I might as well give up.”

5. Acceptance – Facing the loss and moving on, returning to setting goals in your life and focusing your energy more positively. “I’m ready to deal with this now.”

Understanding the 5 Stages

Although these five stages can be a helpful model to keep in mind as you deal with grief and sorrow, everyone’s grieving process will be different. Sometimes a person will follow these stages exactly in order, sometimes out of order and other times only a few stages. Also, the length of time you will spend in each stage varies. Even though these stages were modeled for someone who’s dealing with recent or imminent death, this model can apply to other situations as well. A divorce, betrayal by a friend or large-scale tragedy like 9/11 can also send a person through these stages.

Take a look at this model, which follows an example reaction to the death of a pet:

1. Denial – You pet your animal over and over again, telling him to wake up even though you know he’s gone.

2. Anger – You blame yourself, saying, “If only I had taken him to the vet, this wouldn’t have happened!”

3. Bargaining – You may try to sweet talk a supreme being, saying, “If you just let him wake up, I’ll volunteer at the Humane Society.”

4. Depression – “I’ll never find another pet that I love as much as him.”

5.Acceptance – “I gave my pet a good long life, but he was old and it was his time to move on.”

Dealing With Grief Your Way

Though a pet’s death is not on the same scale of tragedies like 9/11, this model tells us something important about human nature. Any change of circumstance, tragic or not, can cause us to experience the five stages of loss. You may realize that you experience these stages multiple times on a daily basis, or they may be completely unfamiliar to you. No matter what, understanding how you deal with the daily conflicts that are part of life can help you understand how to better deal with a major trauma or heartache.

Many people who are in the grieving process don’t feel like the five stages apply to them, and that’s perfectly normal.Grief is a complicated emotion, and your grieving process is uniquely your own. But no matter which stages you go through, everyone needs to reach the last stage of acceptance. No matter how you get there, you need to eventually grow to accept the situation in order to be a healthy person – mentally, emotionally and physically. Acceptance doesn’t mean that you need to forget the traumatic event and erase it from your memory forever. Rather, acceptance means being able to remember what you lost but still being able to move on with your life.

Moving on with Your Life

After a tragedy, many survivors feel guilty for still being alive. Pleasurable activities like eating and laughing may bring guilt. You might think, “What right do I have to live my life and enjoy myself knowing that terrorists attacked the twin towers and killed so many innocent people?” Or, if your spouse has died, you may feel as if you are betraying your deceased lover by dating again, even if you’re lonely and want a companion. But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t take pleasure in all activities and live your life to the fullest.

The best thing you can do to move on is to celebrate your own life. Isolating yourself won’t help rebuild the twin towers or resurrect someone you cared for. So get out there and enjoy all the beauty that the world has to offer. Don’t let your life, along with the lives of those you lost, be destroyed as well.

The realization that there is a light at that end to be embraced gives way to the tremendous well of hope at the heart of the human spirit. It’s one of the many miracles that we carry around with us wherever we go and exists within a thought’s reach. Be well, be blessed and be healed in whatever manner suits you, always remembering that dawn will follow the darkest hour. If you find difficulty in moving through any phase of loss, seek out help from a professional grief counselor to help you overcome your grief and sorrow.

Could You be Depressed?

Like Picasso, everyone experiences "the blues" from time to time. But if you're depressed, you are experiencing more than just the occasional bad mood or terrible day. Depression affects 19 million people in any given year and is a serious enough disorder to compromise one's ability to function normally day to day. Take this depression quiz and find out if you're just blue or if you might be clinically depressed.